I have started to process of ripping all my SD DVDs for playback on my Apple TV only. I even upgraded my G4 to a Mac Mini Duo Core with 2 gigs of ram (what a difference that made!). I have run into an problem which I am at a loss with and I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing it.

Every other time or so i rep a movie to my desktop then try and drag it into iTunes 1 of two things happen.

1.) Movies copies into the iTunes movie directory as expected.

2.) (here is the problem) Nothing happens. I mean no error message, no transfer progress and no movie making it into iTunes. I always use the following settings. Can some help me understand what may be the issue? I notice sometimes the file is .mv4 and sometimes MEPG4. MV4 always works fine.


Settings:
Framerate: Same as source
Average bitrate: 2500 (every time i try 3000 i get the transfer problem)
2-pass encoding: Yes


Picture Settings:
Keep aspect ratio: Yes


So the only thing I do different from the ATV preset is change to 2-pass and select keep aspect ratio.

BTW if I try to play the movie from my desktop which I cant put into itunes the error message i get is this "An invalid sample description was found in the movie."

Anyone else get this issue?

I think I found a possible solution to this problem which I am testing now. It appears the audio CODEC is set to AC3 and I dont think that is supported by MP4. I have switched it to AAC only and ill try again to see if that helps.

When I use Handbrake to encode it sometimes names the movie with a .MOV extension instead of .M4V. The .MOV will sometimes import into iTunes but when I play it will give an error message and not play. Renaming these to .M4V fixes the issue.

ATV is pretty new to me. Can anyone tell me why when I watch a movie I bought from ATV it plays in 44.1k? not 48k surround?

I think I found a possible solution to this problem which I am testing now. It appears the audio CODEC is set to AC3 and I dont think that is supported by MP4. I have switched it to AAC only and ill try again to see if that helps.

If you are using your rips for apple tv only, you should output to m4v not mp4. Make sure you are using the x.264 codec to transcode.

A good starting point is to use the apple tv preset in handbrake. Transcode to m4v and select 5.1 AC3 for your first audio track. You can also select 5.1 AAC if you plan to watch the movie on your computer.

You may also want to look at using constant quality at about 65 - 70% instead of the 2 pass average bit rate.

The handbrake forums are a wealth of information......

I'd do a bunch of reading in the handbrake forums before you transcode too many only to find you should have had a particular setting set another way.

For example, for subtitles, are you selecting 'autoselect' and checking off forced subtitles (when setting your audio settings)? Checking this off will display the 'forced' subtitles in a movie - for example when han solo is talking to greedo in the cantina in star wars. Without this checked off, you'd have no idea what greedo was saying as the subtitles won't be there.

If you are using your rips for apple tv only, you should output to m4v not mp4. Make sure you are using the x.264 codec to transcode.

A good starting point is to use the apple tv preset in handbrake. Transcode to m4v and select 5.1 AC3 for your first audio track. You can also select 5.1 AAC if you plan to watch the movie on your computer.

You may also want to look at using constant quality at about 65 - 70% instead of the 2 pass average bit rate.

The handbrake forums are a wealth of information......

I'd do a bunch of reading in the handbrake forums before you transcode too many only to find you should have had a particular setting set another way.

For example, for subtitles, are you selecting 'autoselect' and checking off forced subtitles (when setting your audio settings)? Checking this off will display the 'forced' subtitles in a movie - for example when han solo is talking to greedo in the cantina in star wars. Without this checked off, you'd have no idea what greedo was saying as the subtitles won't be there.


thanks for the great info!

Under the audio tracks I have the following:
Track 1: English (AC3) (5.1ch)
Track 1: Dolby Pro Logic II + AC-3

Is that correct in order to get 5.1?

Did you ever experience what I did and not be able to add a movie into itunes after using handbrake?

I am using the windows version so it may look a little different, but basically the way I select my tracks is I select the 5.1 track twice. Set one to AC3 and the other to AAC (I'm not at home and I don't remember the exact wording)

Basically
Track 1: 5.1 AC3
Track 2 5.1 AAC 160 44 (or whatever the defaults are)

I don't usually have a Dolby Prologic II option (as I just usually rip the 5.1 track) - you could probably pick that as track 2 instead.

Really, your best bet is to just transcode a chapter or 2 and do some testing of the different settings before you go hardcore.

I've never not been able to add a m4v file. Though I don't drag and drop, I point itunes to my movie folder and let it find them that way.

it seems like I remember reading a post or 2 on the Hanbrake board about a similar problem someone had - if I remember right, they renamed the mpeg file with an mv4 extension and iTunes picked it up ; Might be worth a try.. though I agree with above posts to sample on chapters until you get the settings to work the way you want. you can save these as a custom preset as well...

regarding the purchased ATV movies; I believe only the HD rented movies come as DD-surround (and not all of those); SD are just 2 channel (although my PLII decoder creates a pretty good surround from these). Now with HD TV shows, I suspect we'll see this change over time to include surround on purchased movies - but 'only the shadow knows' for sure....

ken